I find nothing about the NFL — not Roger Goodell or DeMaurice Smith, not Kevin Kolb or Peyton Manning, not a $76 million contract for someone named Charles Johnson, not even (gasp!) Tim Tebow — more fascinating than Belichick and the New England Way.

Chad Ochocinco and Albert Haynesworth, two of the most self-absorbed humans on the planet, are now members of the most calculating, ruthless, no-individuality-in-team, fun-is-for-losers, joy-is-only- in-victory New England Patriots? I don’t get it.

“When you have a veteran team with good leadership from your head coach, good leadership in the locker room, you can take on a, quote, problem child,” said former NFL general manager Charley Casserly. “Because no one is going to be influenced by the problem child. You already have a culture intact.”

Isn’t everybody intrigued by greatness, especially when it’s achieved through unique means? And the Pats are great, no matter that they haven’t won it all since 2004. In this age of NFL parity, when the Bears can reach the Super Bowl in the 2006 season and finish last in the NFC North in 2007, when New Orleans can finish last in the NFC South in 2008 and win the Super Bowl in 2009, the Patriots, in the last 10 years, have gone 14-2, 10-6, 11-5, 16-0, 12-4, 10-6, 14-2, 14-2, 9-7 and 11-5.

That’s a 10-year average of 12-4. That’s what I call greatness.

Now hold on. I know. To try and sell the Patriot Way in Broncos country is a sure way to get a nose busted by a slammed door. I still don’t blame Pat Bowlen and Joe Ellis from trying to tap into the New England secret.

What the Broncos learned is what every other team that’s hired a Belichick disciple has learned: The magic is not with the Patriots. The magic is in Belichick.

And a 33-year-old version of Belichick who looks 19 just can’t command the same type of authority, no matter how loud Josh McDaniels screamed.

It’s been fashionable of late to suggest Belichick wouldn’t be so brilliant if he didn’t have Tom Brady as his quarterback. Entering the 2000 draft, 31 teams of scouts, coaches and executives thought Brady was no better than a sixth-round talent. Yet Brady is carrying Belichick?

Brady goes 16-0 one year, gets hurt and essentially misses the entire season the next. And the Patriots, with a quarterback who never started a game in college, much less in the NFL, goes 11-5.

It’s not that there haven’t been great franchises, or great champions, in sports before. I just can’t quite wrap the mind around how the Patriots get it done.

Chad Ochocinco is not the Patriots. Chad Johnson has a far more appropriate Patriots ring. Can you imagine Ocho- cinco pantomiming a bull ride to celebrate a touchdown catch from Brady? Me either.

“I’m sure Bill will have some reins on him,” said Broncos long snapper Lonie Paxton, who played nine seasons, and in four Super Bowls with Belichick and New England. “But they’re vets. They’re not kids coming in. These are Pro Bowlers.”

That’s the thing about Belichick. In many ways he’s followed the old, renegade Raiders model with all the bad boys he’s brought in.

Ochocinco and Haynesworth followed Ryan Mallet, a first-round talent and a top- rate character risk. Mallet followed Randy Moss, who the year before had flat-out quit on the Raiders.

“There’s such a great at- mosphere inside that locker room that when people come in, they just follow along,” Paxton said.

Great atmosphere in the locker room? What about the joyless pursuit of excellence?

“There’s what the media perceives the atmosphere to be inside that locker room,” Paxton said. “And there’s what’s really inside the locker room.”

Whatever it is, it works only in New England’s locker room.

More accurately, it works only when Belichick is leading that locker room.

Mike Klis was with The Denver Post from Jan. 1, 1998 before leaving in 2015 to join KUSA 9News. He covered the Rockies and Major League Baseball until the 2005 All-Star break, when he was asked to start covering the Broncos.

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